Day 5 Entebbe, Uganda

Tuesday: Entebbe School Visit

The five of us arrive at Bugongo School and pose in front of a Roots and Shoots Tree

Walking to the classrooms on the school grounds.

In the Grade 5 classroom
Tuesday morning we found ourselves at a local Entebbe school called Sacred Heart Bugongo. As we jumped out of the trusy white JGI van, we were heartily welcomed by the principal, Sarah. The school iteself was made of several buildings with 2 or 3 classroom in each. The classrooms were brick structures with cement floors and corregated tin roofs and without electricity. The smallest class we visited boasted 47 students. As we entered the rooms students all stood up and chanted a greeting in unison. These students, some of whom walk 10 km each way to school, were extremely well disciplined despite the crowded conditions and hard wooden benches upon where they sit from 8 in the morning until 5 at night.



The school had wonderful and inspired teachers who clearly care deeply about their pupils experience. A marked concern for the education of girls was present as many drop out when they begin menstration. This was highlighted by some of the signs in one classroom that stated: An Educated Girl is a Better Mother. We also found amusing a line from a grammar lesson that said: A happy wife is a joy in life. A Roots and Shoots club (an environmental club inspired by Jane Goodall) is run at the school and they have planted trees and grass upon what was a red dirt play area to beautify the school and control soil erosion. Visiting this wonderful school gave us some insight into the challenges that teachers face in Uganda.

Entebbe Market

Day 1 Entebbe, Uganda

Ingrid, Monica and April enjoying a view of the chimpanzees.

Patricia and Chris
Visiting the Wildlife Education Centre

Arrival
Having arrived from all different routes accross the world, the five of us assembled at the Gately Inn in Entebbe, Uganda for our first breakfast together on Sunday morning. Despite our varying degrees of jet lag and stories of exciting lay-overs (Chris managed to squeeze a visit to the pyramids in her 10 hours in Cairo!), our excitement about our project allowed us to bond as a group immediately.

Our First Wildlife Experience The monkey that stole the lolly!

Omlettes, coffee and malaria tablets ingested, we headed out to the Wildlife Education Centre to get our first taste of the incredible fauna that we are here to help promote the importance of preserving. The Wildlife Education Centre is transitioning from a zoo to a place where children and adults can come to learn about the natural wildlife of Uganda. Monkeys roam the grounds and young ones must be certain to keep there sweets well-guarded as the cheeky primates have a habit of relieving children of their tasty treats! To a cacophony of birdsong, we approached the enclosures and viewed a lion, chimpanzees, zebras, guinea fowl, rhinos, shoebills (four feet tall) and crocodiles. We were delighted with the opportunity to see these amazing creatures in such close proximity. Two endangered white rhinos at the Wildlife Education Centre

Preparation for the Workshops at JGI Entebbe
Today, we went to the JGI office here in Entebbe and began preparing for the workshops which will take place in the Masindi region of Uganda over the next two weeks. We had the pleasure of meeting with Tracy, who runs these workshops, and working in the garden while colourful birds and butterflies flitted about and the resident dogs Tinker, Scrappy and Levi tried to convince us to give them ear scratches.

The workshop targets primary school teachers who work in proximity to the forests which are home to chimpanzees. The ratioinale for this age group is due to the fact that 60% of children drop out of school by the end of grade 7. The workshops themselves measure the exisiting knowledge of teachers on Environmental Education and explains how Environmental Education can be integrated into all areas of the Ugandan curriculum. Rationales, objectives and principles of Environmental Education are explained and different teaching methods such as cooperative learning, experiential learning and multiple intelligences are introduced and reviewed, allowing teachers to develop lesson plans to take back to their school communities. Facilitation is also discussed so that the teachers may in turn teach their colleagues about what they have learned.